Posts Tagged ‘Dutch Design’

We probably have harbored some desire to work with our hands since Demi Moore sat at the pottery wheel in Ghost. We have never yet sat at a wheel, but managed an experience or two decorating something at a Color Me Mine. Kim Novak once discussed her lifelong love for painting, something she started when she became an actress, and would often do during breaks in filming. Juliette Binoche created all of the paintings shown in her new film Words and Pictures. Periodically we too feel nudged to create. Something lasting, something to leave behind.

Along came a workshop at the Met teaching sculpting and jewelry casting, the material used would be epoxy resin, which had first captivated us with Maarten Baas’ ‘Smoke Chair.’ The ‘Smoke’ series consists of furniture that Baas torched, then brought back to life by coating them in epoxy resin. Black epoxy resin, a look we find the most beautiful still. We always thought the entire process so sensual – burning, smoking then treating an object into a unique and exceptional kind of beauty. Of course we would come out for black epoxy resin…

Our first project, creating molds from a soft gummy substance that then hardens into a kind of rubber. Once we had our mold, we mixed epoxy and blended in color. Layer by layer we folded it into the mold, and waited patiently for it to harden into something that still unexpectedly, vividly, perfectly takes the mold’s shape.

The second, filling bezels with layers of resin, depositing colors next to or through each other, each layer contributing more depth and complexity than the previous one. This takes much patience, as it’s best to let layers dry before adding to them. Filling even a small edged bezel may take some hours. But every layer sparks new creativity and a new story to the final piece.

The workshop lasted 5 hours and yet we felt quite rushed, especially through the second half. This means we could have done much more with our bezels, but we love having a laid a foundation. We have the first layer of two pieces that we can choose to add complexity to. Similarly we have the first layer of creating by hand. Now we can add depth and add new stories, like layers of rock, our history to hold…

It was the Chanel Couture show that awed us with the possibilities of paper…

Katsuya Kamo had taken two of our favorite things,

flowers and hats,

and used paper to create beautiful and unusual forms.

Via Hatsmate

We love that Ingrid silakius has stretched our imagination once again, with Super Cuts for T- magazine.

Via New York Times

What if we commissioned a super cut of our logo? Two Ws interlinked. Throughout there would be the cuts of different shapes; a hand fan, a tiger tulip and a silhouette. The silhouette would be of us. We would be wearing of course, a hat.

The possibilities, never ending. Its creations haunting, exquisite, unfathomable. We, longing, short of breath, craving to touch, dreaming of its beautiful forms. Then along comes a chance for an encounter,

Escapism by Daniel Widrig and Iris van Herpen

Via Dutch DFA

The Centraal Museum, a presentation, 25 of her works, a 3-D printer where the obsessed can watch up close, right there in front of their very eyes, a creation coming to life. And we, not there, but far away, longing, still coveting, our hopes yet unfulfilled. But we know it to be so, only just for now…

Job is like a coach to us, one who sometimes drives us to distress, but always pushes us to take a step further and improve the quality of our work. Sometimes it seems like he…won’t accept limitations. -Jan Tichelaar

Still Life by Studio Job

via Unicahome

We like that – a coach, pushing, no boundaries. Always questioning: what would be possible if…We like vision, seeing what no one else can see, knowing what is truly there. We like the big, bold ones, the shiny Robber Baron pieces. But then we like re-discovering the quiet ones; pressed porcelain. Porcelain re-imagined, so that we can love it again. Still life, transformed life, authentic life…

We find it pretty, the way it is tall, elegant, definitively imposing.

The Cube by Orange Architects

Via Dutch DFA

The way that there are many things achieved even with a cool exterior reflecting maybe just one. The way that it has presence drawing us in to look deeper, curious to uncover its secrets; how is it then, those magnificent rotations? Ah, it is the strength of the core that frees each level from any constraints to volume, design, vision, creativity. Throughout the core flow a riches of elements. Some then become alchemists….

Inspired by the movement of a flock birds, FlyLight a light installation, reacts to you when surrounded, and by the configurations of those surrounding it.

FlyLight by Design Drift

Via Notcot

If we were were in front of Flylight we would approach slowly, pause, raise our arms, let our head drop back, turn away. We would move back, look over our shoulder, approach again, a scarf in our hands now, trailing us, then move closer, this time to the side. Then we would watch. We would take our dress, hold it in each hand, lifting it ever so slightly off our ankles, and with sweeping motions move around FlyLight, inviting her to join our dance. What would be the light of our duet?

We had a desire and then we sighed, releasing it, trusting it would come to us when the time was right.

The time was right shortly thereafter. As unassuming as a falling leaf, it floated into our hands. There – big, heavy, magical, spell binding – it sat before us, as beautiful and beckoning as we had thought it might be. The details, the embossing, the leatheresque binding, the gold overlay, throughout its pages unfolding romance.

We have been smiling ever since. We will share with you, as we are indulging…

Fascinated by the secrets and invisibility of water, in particular the antithesis of structure and chaos, Iris van Herpen takes this as the foundation of her collection. Imagine the transformation of water to crystal, soft and fluid as water, opposed to hard, mathematical structures as ice crystals. Seemingly chaos to structured precision.